


Every Waking Hour

by andreaphobia



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: A complete inability to cope, Angst, Coping, Death, Desire, Heavy heavy issues, Lack of Coping, Loneliness, Loss, M/M, Yamamoto needs therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreaphobia/pseuds/andreaphobia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've stopped listening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Waking Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Originally archived on LJ. Edited some since the first time.

_Every morning the same big and little words_   
_all spelling out desire, all spelling out_   
_You will be alone always and then you will die._

 

 

Here’s what’s funny: what makes you feel horrible isn’t how the house is falling apart, or how you’ve made a complete mess of his room, drinking cheap beer—god, he always _hated_ cheap beer—by the six-pack every night until you pass out in a drunken heap on the floor. It isn’t even that the last thing you did was argue with him because you accidentally scratched up his motorcycle on a midnight joyride that, well, seemed like a good idea at the time.

It’s the fact that, when Tsuna brought you the news, you... just... laughed.

You even expected them to laugh with you, like it was just a bad joke. But Tsuna’s face was blank, closed off, like a door slamming shut, and Gokudera gave you a look like you were about to crack. And you were on the verge of saying _wait, you’re kidding, right?_ , but the words died on your lips.

 

 

Gokudera always did have a shitty sense of humor.

 

 

But really, it’s absurd. If you think about it.

Because what could kill Hibari Kyouya?

_Hibari... Hibari is... he’s_ dead _, Yamamoto._

See? Just... absurd. A crappy prank played by friends who really should know better.

In high school, you learned that it’s possible to construct a sentence that is grammatically correct, but semantic nonsense.

_Yamamoto?_

_Are you listening?_

This is one of those sentences.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, the answer is: bad intelligence, and a single 7mm rifle cartridge to the head.)

Everyone tiptoes around you now, speaking in hushed whispers like you’re on your deathbed. Sometimes you want to scream at them _I’m not the one who died!_ but if you did that you’d probably start laughing, too, and you wouldn’t want to scare anybody.

You have to be sensitive about these things, after all.

 

 

What _really_ gets you, though, is that nothing changes.

Every morning you shower, dress, and go to work. Sometimes this involves violence. Other times, just paperwork.

You’d always thought that the death of a loved one would _hurt_ you in some way—maybe you’d be so emotionally paralyzed that you’d have a never-ending self-pity party in bed—but for some reason you just keep going. You couldn’t stop if you tried.

You thought you’d have to pick up the pieces, but then you find that there are no pieces to pick up.

After a while, it even starts to feel as if you’re waiting for something.

But what?

An epiphany?

A miracle?

Plain old closure?

Because—crazy as it sounds—you just can’t seem to parse the fact that he’s gone. Just the other day he was mad at you for not closing the fridge door properly. Now he’s zipped up tight in a body bag, lying on a slab at the morgue like all the other stiffs.

And maybe it’s bad, or inappropriate, but the strangest little things make you want to laugh. They roll him out on his little shelf and unzip the bag, and the first thing that comes to your mind is that he’d hate how _crowded_ this place is.

Then you remember that they’re all dead anyway, and dead people can’t feel anything, and you have to fight down a grin. Gokudera shoots you another dubious look, like he thinks you’re losing it, then goes back to worrying about Tsuna, whose face is white as a sheet. You’ve never seen him this pale, not in the ten years that you’ve known him.

You’d spare a thought for him, if you remembered how.

So, there it is, the piece of meat that used to be Hibari—eyes closed, lying inside a body bag. You tune out the mortician as he goes over the results of the autopsy, instead bending round slowly, comically, to examine the blown-out bullet wound—all the gore cleaned away, leaving nothing but a gaping hole. He almost looks as if he’s sleeping. (Aside from the fact that a chunk of the back of his head is gone, anyway.)

And for one crazy moment, you’re seized by the urge to crawl up there with him, everyone else be damned, just curl up by his cold, cold side and go right to sleep, too.

Maybe you’d never wake up. Maybe they’d cremate you with him.

Maybe you’d be okay with that.

It takes all of your self-control, but you manage to get through this whole meeting without laughing even once.

You can tell from the way that Tsuna looks at you that he’s glad you weren’t there when it happened. He thinks you would’ve gone to your death with Hibari, and there’s no way he could handle the loss of two guardians at once.

But in a way that’s selfish of him, because you’re pretty sure this would all make sense to you if you’d just been there to see it happen. For some reason there’s a disconnect between the reality of the world around you, and your conception of the world that you’ve formed inside your head.

(In one of these, Hibari Kyouya is still alive and well.)

And you have to wonder: what would you have done to the guy who killed him?

What would you do to him now if he was standing here, right in front of you?

You try to summon up some feelings one night, already two-thirds of your way through drinking yourself into the death of sleep. Hatred or anger, frustration, sadness, bitterness, loneliness, whatever, anything—any fucking thing at all. Nothing is what you get—not so much as an upset stomach.

But you do spill some beer on his carpet, and the stain spreading from your feet to the wall makes you laugh.

That’s got to be worth something, right?

 

 

Like your dad always said: if you want something badly enough, and work hard enough, you can make it happen, no matter what it is. And your dad isn’t wrong too often.

(Dad never lied to you before, either, but—there’s a first time for everything.)

It’s too bad life isn’t like the movies, because you don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything quite this much. Reality ought to throw you a bone once in a while.

It sounds like a cliche, but Hibari used to have a thing for biting. He was weird that way.

Sometimes you think you can still feel his teeth on your jaw, where the scar is.

Hibari liked that scar, but he hated that Squalo was the one who gave it to you. He once bit you so hard that the teeth marks bled for half a day, not that you minded. Sure, it hurt, but hurting was better than feeling nothing at all.

Gokudera tells you you’re in denial, but. Gokudera says a lot of things.

He also tells you to stop laughing so much, at everything. You think he’d get tired of saying that after so many years, but some people just don’t get it.

You see, you’ve come to terms with Hibari being gone. No, really, you have. You see, you’re in a better place. You _understand_ now.

Hibari is dead, and you are not.

That’s the joke.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
